Bullet trap systems, or devices that are used to catch projectiles have been used for many years by law enforcement, military and the general public to collect fired ammunitions in a contained environment. The primary objective of these devices have been to provide a means and method for the redirection, collection, and containment of spent bullets in a manner that is ideally safe and to protect the shooters from ricochets, splashback of fragments, and hazardous dust. Ideally the bullet trap devices should capture the intended caliber of ammunition and accommodate the composition, velocity and energy of the incoming projectiles while preventing potentially dangerous subsequent conditions for the users of the device that arise from shooting bullets. Existing bullet trap systems have evolved from simple dirt or sand berms to metal plate configurations, water traps and media trap designs that involve granulated rubber media.
Metal plate type bullet traps have been provided in varying shapes, sizes and configurations. However, all generally provide an upper plate set and a lower plate set which are typically planar and linear in fabrication. The upper plate is typically suspended from the ceiling portion of the host facility and is angled downwardly in the direction of anticipated bullet travel. Conversely, the lower plate is typically supported upon the ground by a support structure and is angled upwardly in the direction of anticipated bullet travel. Thus, the upper and lower plates converge to provide an ever narrowing bullet path directed toward a bullet deceleration chamber. The typical bullet deceleration chamber defines an entrance opening and a generally closed chamber sufficient in length to captivate and retain a partially spent bullet that has traveled to the deceleration chamber through the tapered plate array. The bullet typically dissipates the remaining energy that it possesses within the bullet deceleration chamber and, once fully dissipated, drops into a bullet containment center typically housed beneath the deceleration chamber. Thus a bullet or other projectile entering the bullet trap initially impacts the upper or lower plate of the bullet trap and then ricochets toward the oppositely positioned plate and further ricochets back to the previous direction in a pattern of plate to plate ricochets converging to enter the deceleration chamber. As the bullet or other projectile experiences successive ricochets back and forth between the upper and lower plate of the bullet trap, portions of the bullet energy are absorbed and expended as the bullet works its way toward the deceleration chamber. The extent to which the bullet trap effectively and efficiently dissipates the energy of an incoming bullet is to a large extent determined by geometric relationships between the path of the incoming bullet and the angles of the upper and lower plates. Accordingly, practitioners in the art have expended substantial effort in endeavoring to properly design plate-type bullet traps to fix the plate angles for best operation.
While conventional plate-type bullet traps have to some extent improved the art and have in some instances enjoyed commercial success, there remains nonetheless a continuing and unresolved need in the art for evermore improved, effective, efficient and safe plate-type bullet traps.